Marie Farrell claims garda said ‘fitting up’ Bailey a ‘turn on’

Marie Farrell has told the High Court a Detective Sergeant exposed himself to her before saying wasn't "fitting up" that "long black bollocks or English bastard or whatever they called Ian Bailey" a "real turn on".

Ms Farrell said the incident happened after Det Sgt Maurice Walsh followed her into the toilets of the golf club in Schull in summer 1998.

In continuing evidence in Mr Bailey’s civil action against the Garda Commissioner and State over the conduct of the investigation into the murder of French film maker Sophie Toscan du Plantier near Schull in late 1996, Ms Farrell said she lied during the 2003 hearing of libel actions by Mr Bailey after gardaí “told me to stick to the story”.

Those lies included claims she saw Mr Bailey at around 2am on a road near Schull on December 23rd, 1996, just hours before the body of Ms Toscan du Plantier was found, and had been harassed and intimidated by Mr Bailey on several occasions, she said.

After her evidence to the libel trial, Det Supt Dermot Dwyer told her she “did very well” and shook hands with her and she felt something but only realised outside he had put €20 into her hand, she said. “I just felt awful because it was like giving a child money for being good.”

She had not wanted to give evidence at the libel trial, but gardaí put her under “huge pressure” to do so and Supt Dwyer said, if she didn’t, she would be brought to the court in handcuffs, she said. Supt Dwyer told her the emphasis had to be on Mr Bailey “being threatening”.

Asked how she feels now about that, she said: “I can only apologise, I know I shouldn’t have done it.”

After the libel actions, she said Det Garda Jim Fitzgerald told her it was "a good time to keep the pressure on" and to try and get enough on the file to have Mr Bailey charged.

She agreed to give an interview to journalist Michael Sheridan, alleging Mr Bailey was still threatening her, and other media interviews. Det Fitzgerald told her she "owed" him because it was due to him introducing her to Senator Peter Callanan that her family had got a site from Cork County Council for a house at a certain price, she said.

In March 2004, she received a letter from Mr Bailey’s solicitors saying he denied her allegations of harassment and to cease making those. She instructed a solicitor to reply refusing to give such an undertaking.

After that, she rang Det Fitzgerald saying she was having “nothing more to do with this”.

Sgt Maurice Walsh had told her she would have to go to court again and she said she would never again go to court “and tell lies for the guards”, she said.

She said she told Sgt Walsh, “if you keep this up”, she would go to Frank Buttimer, Mr Bailey’s solicitor, and “tell the truth” and Sgt Walsh said “who cares about that” and added, if she did so, she would never again have a day’s peace in Schull or anywhere in Ireland.

She discussed the matter over time with her husband and others and, during this period, her children began to experience hassle from the gardaí, she said. In March 2005, she told Mr Buttimer she had made false statements about his client.

Earlier, Ms Farrell said, while she was working in Schull golf club in summer 1998, she, her husband, Sgt Walsh and his wife were having drinks at the bar at the end of a night. Ms Farrell said she went to check the toilets and could see Sergeant Walsh behind her.

He was intoxicated, got her up against the wall, tried to open her clothes, opened his own trousers and exposed himself, she said.

She said he said something along the lines “what would you like to do with that?” and asked her “isn’t it a real turn on fitting up the long black bollocks or the English bastard of whatever they called Ian Bailey”.

She “just pushed him away”, said “for fecks sake Maurice, Pauline’s out there”, fixed her clothes and walked out.

Asked had she done anything about the matter, she said: “There’s no point, things like that happen when people have drink on them.”

She said she did tell her husband.

Ms Farrell also said Det Fitzgerald asked her, and she agreed, to instruct a solicitor to write in July 1997 to Mr Bailey falsely alleging Mr Bailey was harassing Ms Farrell, had sent his partner Jules Thomas into Ms Farrell’s shop in Schull to get her to withdraw her statement, had parked his car outside her shop a number of times and had made “cut-throat gestures to her”.

None of that was true, Ms Farrell said. She also made false statements to gardaí in July and August 1997 alleging Mr Bailey and Ms Thomas had threatened her, including that Ms Thomas told her: “Your day will come.”

A statement of her getting a phone call on August 12th, 1997 from a man with an English accent telling her to: “Watch your back, we are going to take you out” was true, but she did not know who that caller was.

She “never felt happy” about making the statements, but felt obliged to do what Det Fitzgerald asked because he “was always doing favours for us”.

When Supt Dermot Dwyer was about to retire, he referred to her having up to 15 unpaid fines totalling some €1,500 for speeding and insurance matters and said she should make some payments off those and she paid off some €300 over time, she said. Det Fiztgerald previously told her not to worry about those and whenever she got one, she had given it to him, she said.

Det Fitzgerald was concerned about a review of the murder investigation by gardaí from Dublin and told her to get a name off a headstone in Longford and tell the Dublin team the dead person was the man she was with on the night of December 22/23rd, 1996, she said.

The Dublin gardaí told her, if she did not co-operate, they had her husband’s fingerprints and could make it look like she was covering for him, she said.

A tape recording was also played of an April 1998 phone conversation between Ms Farrell and Det Fitzgerald. She said it related to her making a statement to Sgt Walsh and Det Fitzgerald being unhappy she had done so. Asked about a remark by Det Fitzgerald: “I deserve an answer after a fucking year and a half on this phone”, she said that referred to the “constant phone calls”.

The defendants deny all of Mr Bailey’s claims, including of wrongful arrest and conspiracy.

The case continues today.